In article <7cuson$8ff$1 at nnrp1.dejanews.com>, dwheeler at teleport.com
writes:
> But Tuesday's listings
> bring the Endangered Species Act into the back yards of most people living in
> the Northwest. The listings encompass for the first time Oregon's Willamette
> Valley - base of the state's agriculture industry - and the southern Puget
> Sound region, including Seattle. Protecting the quality of waterways could
> prove expensive and painful.
Did you catch the article about the research results from Prince William
Sound? It seems that fry are sensitive to petroleum products in the
parts per billion range. All you need is road film to kill salmon. The
ESA may end up restricting sale of petroleum products in the PNW and
mandating removal of paved highways. I always did think those damned
freeways were instruments of the devil, anyway. Good riddance.
BTW, the issue with the salmon listing is not concerned with the
extinction of the coho salmon. The coho is one of the most plentiful
fish in the world, and currently swims thousands of miles outside its
original range. The reliable anadromous habits of the salmon have led to
it being transplanted to temperate zone waters all over the world. You
can find coho in Europe, south Africa, New Zealand, and most of Asia.
Even in the PNW, thousands of tons of coho are hatchery harvested every
year.
The ESA listing is only to preserve wild stocks in some streams where
they aren't doing well. At that, there aren't any pure strains left,
since hatcheries commonly enhanced fish runs by dumping smolt into the
rivers for most of the 20th century. Also, there are still streams where
the wild runs are doing fine, often only a mile or so as the crow flies
from streams where they are dying out.
-- Larry